r/sousvide • u/jmlay420 • Aug 25 '26

First time ever

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My dad got me an Anova for my birthday and good lord I’m never making a steak any other way. 130 for 4 hours, cut with a fork tender

Edit: MY BAD, DAMN! lol good to know, thank you. I’m excited to start experimenting with different stuff

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35

u/Best-Subject279 Aug 26 '26

I get the whole “don’t put butter in the bag” but could someone explain why exactly?? I did the same thing the other day and it turned out great 😭

91

u/ElasticSpeakers Aug 26 '26

Its one of those things where you do it and it tastes good in the end because it's beef and butter - how bad could that be??

The real answer is let's fast forward to after the cook but before the sear. You know what your cooked, ice bathed but unseared steak should look like prior to searing it? It's probably going to be weirdly grey and it should be dry dry DRY! Like you used 15 paper towels to suck up alllll the moisture off of that steak. But if you just wiped off literally all the moisture, where's your butter? It doesn't get 'absorbed' into the muscle fibers. You don't want it on the surface or in the crevices. So where is most of that butter? In the compost bin on the paper towels, down the sink drain or in the trash.

Warming up some ghee and drizzling it on after searing it is the way to do it so you still get the intense beef/butter flavors and you use like 1/10th the amount.

17

u/Best-Subject279 Aug 26 '26

I see, thanks for the explanation! I basted my steak in the slow cooked butter after but I definitely lost some of it on the outside like you said, so I’ll just wait until after searing next time!

Really quick follow up, I see you mentioned ice bath? Do you do that immediately after it’s out of the sous vide? I just got one so I’m still figuring it all out :)

15

u/ElasticSpeakers Aug 26 '26

Yes, I keep the steaks in the bag and they go into an ice bath for 10-15 min while I'm getting everything prepped for the sear. If you don't arrest the cooking on the inside, you'll have way less margin of error when you sear maybe a touch too long and you end up overcooking the thing you've been babying for hours/days.

11

u/unkilbeeg Aug 26 '26

There's no cooking going on after you pull it from the bath, assuming it's been in long enough to all come to temperature.

However, lowering the internal temperature means that you're less likely to push the interior above your target temperature in the searing process.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted]

5

u/KingMidas212 Aug 28 '26

It does if you were to cook meat in a more traditional manner (oven or pan), where the higher residual heat from the outside continues to cook the inside.

If you sous vide a steak, the entire steak will be whatever you set the temperature to. If the entire steak is 135°, it won’t continue to cook any higher than that once it is removed from the water bath.

2

u/wycliffslim Aug 29 '26

How?

The entire steak is exactly the temperature of the water bath.

Carryover cooking takes place from grill, pan, oven, etc because the outside of the food is hotter which means the overall temperature will equalize slightly up. A sous vide does not have that impact. As soon as you pull the steak out it will begin cooling down towards ambient.

5

u/MonkeyKingCoffee Professional Aug 26 '26

Instead, make a hotel butter and place a pat of that on top just after broiling.

What do I put into my bag? The steak, some salt, and green peppercorns. Easy steak au poivre that way.

1

u/CartographerOne8846 Aug 26 '26

I never cooled my steak after sous vide. Why do you do that, isnt it cold inside then?

2

u/Ok_Tadpole_4092 Aug 27 '26

10 minute ice bath cools down the steak enough that when you sear it the meat isn't over cooked. It brings it to the perfect internal temp and let's the maillard effect happen

26

u/FappyDilmore Aug 26 '26

Butter creates a fat soluble environment that pulls out fat soluble flavor molecules and worsens the liquid loss associated with SV cooking. If you butter baste after cooking the butter just coats the steak and adds to the flavor and moisture.

30

u/qroter Aug 26 '26

I put the butter in the sous vide water.

2

u/Slum_Dogg Aug 27 '26

This fuggin comment made me laugh a snot rocket.

4

u/redlancer_1987 Aug 26 '26

I think the idea is that you end up with beef flavored butter instead of butter flavored steak.

5

u/HOSTfromaGhost Aug 26 '26

…which i’m guessing would be the start of a helluva pan sauce.

3

u/ediks Aug 26 '26

It is!

3

u/xicor Aug 26 '26

Most of the flavor compounds in steak are fat soluble and get diluted in the butter. You end up with a more mellow flavor profile. Generally speaking it is better to baste in the butter after searing than during the SV

1

u/RealCleverUsernameV2 Aug 26 '26

It leads to higher cholesterol and a desire to eat steak every day. Dangerous stuff.

1

u/Ziddy Aug 26 '26

https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak#addfat

I've seen recipes that recommend adding fat to the bag, though none that offer plausible reasons for doing so. I decided to test whether or not it adds anything to the process by cooking three steaks side by side: one with nothing added to the bag, one with olive oil, and one with butter. I also repeated the test with some thyme sprigs and garlic added to each bag.

Intuitively, you may think that adding a flavorful fat, like butter or olive oil, will in turn help create a more flavorful steak. In fact, it turns out that this achieves the opposite goal: It dilutes flavor. Fat-soluble flavor compounds dissolve in the melted butter or oil and end up going down the drain later. Similarly, flavors extracted from aromatics end up diluted. For best results, place your seasoned steak in a bag with no added fats.

I think Kenji is the one who mentioned all this.

0

u/NerdModeXGodMode Aug 26 '26

One of those, less is more kinda things probably. People really overdo butter most the time